Photo: Africa Studio via Shutterstock Another year has rolled around. I asked for your lists of the best books you have read in 2022, and as always, was overwhelmed by your response. There is something for everyone here. Fiction choices include novels about Argentina’s brutal dictatorship, India’s partition, unkept promises in South Africa, stories about …
Category: Book lists
The Best Books of 2021
Photo: Yulia Grigoryeva via Shutterstock It is already the end of 2021! The year has flown past. We haven’t been locked down quite as much as we were last year—we did manage to see friends and family—but Covid isn’t history yet, and no one is sure what the coming months will bring. As always, we …
Best books of 2020
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash The year 2020 is coming to a close, finally. And what a year it has been! For weeks on end we stayed confined to our homes, unable to lead normal lives, listening to grim news of the pandemic. But throughout all this, books have opened a door to other …
Books for the lockdown
Photo by Pancholp (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Some of you have asked for books you can read during this time of lockdown and the threat of pandemic. Nothing too grim, something that will make you laugh or that will help you escape. So here is a far from exhaustive list, mostly, though not entirely, from my …
Best books of 2019
Photo by Abee5 (CC BY 2.0) Another year is drawing to a close, and it’s time to look back at the books we have read and pull out some of the best. Thank you for contributing to this list and making it so varied. I was delighted to see several books in translation this year. …
Best books of 2018
My request for the best books you read this year had an overwhelming response! Thank you to those of you who sent in their lists. The lists below not only cover a wide range of subjects, but also span centuries, from 2018 to those published hundreds of years ago. Fiction includes fantasy, crime and …
Women Travellers Tell their Stories
Think of all the travel books that you have read: how many of them are written by men? Almost all? And yet women have been travelling and writing about it for as long as men. As a reviewer for the website, Women on the Road, I have spent the last few years reading these books. …
Best books of 2017
I asked people what they enjoyed reading most in 2017. Their combined list is below, and the variety bears testament to their wide range of interests. The books listed under fiction are about refugees, women power, slavery, dictators, relationships between women and between families, and a take on Sherlock Holmes. The authors are from around …
The Best of the Books I Read in 2014
Here's my selection of the best of the books I read this year. Links are to reviews on this site. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton—one of the most enjoyable books I read this year. Set in New Zealand in the 1860s with multiple narrators, the narrative keeps looping in on itself. A man arrives in …
Best books of 2013
I know I've already asked for this via Facebook, but we have more space here and not everyone is on FB. Respond in a post rather than in a comment on my piece. Mine are: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail--Cheryl Strayed; Snake Ropes--Jess Richards; Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier; The Imperfectionists--Tom Rachman; …
Talking About Books 